Cardinal opens new HQ, including Andrew Luck Auditorium

A year after Cal finished a $321 million renovation of Memorial Stadium, Stanford has opened a new headquarters for its football team in a much smaller project that nonetheless gives the Cardinal a plush, high-tech home.

A $21 million addition to the Arrillaga Family Sports Center provides a dazzling array of wall-sized photos of great moments in Stanford football. One mural depicts Mark Bradford‘s catch of a fourth-down touchdown pass by Tavita Pritchard with 49 seconds left that shocked USC 24-23 in 2007 in one of the greatest college upsets of all time.

The 27,000-square-foot addition houses the offices of the football coaches, a state-of-the-art training facility, three conference rooms, eight team meeting rooms, a players lounge, a study lounge, a locker room with 110 cherry stalls for the players, and even a locker room for NFL players who train at their alma mater in the offseason.

There’s the cushy Andrew Luck Auditorium, where players will watch game tapes on theater-style seating and plug in their iPads for updates on their playbook.

Luck didn’t fund the auditorium, but the Colts quarterback joined with a few other ex-Stanford stars – Jim Plunkett, John Elway, John Lynch and Tommy Vardell – each of whom donated more than $100,000 for the building addition.

Head coach David Shaw thinks the new digs will have an “immeasurable” impact on recruiting.

“When you come to Stanford, you know what you’re getting academically,” he said. “You’ve seen what we’ve been able to do football-wise. This facility shows the dedication of our university, the dedication of our donors to make sure that we have everything that we need to be successful.

“It’s not just nice and shiny and new; it’s bigger, it’s better, it’s more functional, it’s more high-tech. It’s what Stanford should be – surrounded by excellence.”

Many other Stanford sports also benefited from the project by moving into renovated quarters vacated by the football program.

A new weight room will be added in about six months, and the school’s new athletic Hall of Fame will be finished in 12 to 18 months, a spokesman said.